


Black Sea

by Girleona



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Angst, Crash Landing, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Human Keith (Voltron), M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), mermaid, mermaid lance, sharks are afraid of mer-people, talking to fish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 01:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17274278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Girleona/pseuds/Girleona
Summary: Lance is a mermaid lost in the darkness. Keith survives a plane crash and Lance saves him. They basically help each other out of their dark mental state. It has a pretty happy little ending. I hope you enjoy! :)





	Black Sea

Lance have always been alone, at least it felt like it. Alone - and in the dark. He absolutely hated it. He had no one talk to - no one at all. He had only the darkness to keep him company - both down below, where he never went too far and the solid darkness above whenever he tried to go up. He ended up somehow in a... cave. His father made a wrong choice in a territorial feud between two of the Kingdoms and they had to flee. That happened an eternity ago - at least it felt like it. It could have happened a phoeb, a deca-phoeb... or 10.000 deca-phoebs ago. He had no idea how much time had gone by since they were found trespassing and his mother screamed for him and his brothers and sisters to hide.

  
He did... but apparently he hid too well. He was only about 10 or 11 deca-phoebs old, he was slim and so tiny he could practically slip between any crease in the rocks. He thought the darkness meant safety at first - and now that same darkness felt like it will consume him. The algae around the cave were edible and he lived on them but he never found the way back from where he came. He found a crease between rocks on one side but there was no way he came in through it - barely one-third of his tail could fit through it now, no more. So he spent his quintants... or more probably phoebs or deca-phoebs swimming around, filling his belly with edible seaweed and some really small fish if they wandered in and he managed to catch them. He really hoped that one day he would find his way out - but even that hope faded after some time. He felt like he was going insane.

  
With quiznak knows how many movements and phoebs behind him, staying alone in this dark place no one came to... no one even came close enough to make any sound... he was definitely going crazy. So time went by and Lance started wondering about how it would feel like to not eat at all. To wither away... and never be anything else. To let the water win, to give himself fully to the ocean. Then one day? Or was it night? An afternoon? He had no idea. But something big smashed the rock around him to pieces and he was soon able to swim away.

  
Miraculously he was fine. So he swam up until he was out of the dark, until the faint light from the... from the Sun reached him. it was a bit blinding but not that much fortunately - the sun was setting. He put his face above the water after so much time... and he saw the glorious sunset. It was so beautiful... but he never remembered this many screams from above. Farther away from him he saw so many carnage... what was this? He panicked and swam down, seeing the debris that was here, what happened, what happened, what happened? Then the second big thing was under the water fully, sinking down.

  
The screaming got worse and he saw the... people. Not mer-people... normies. Humans. Mama always told him to stay away from them but... they were in distress. And some looked so horrible... As if they had been mangled by sharks but no. This was worse. And so many was about to die... he saw a few trying to swim away but they had some puffy things on and they couldn't come out as their way was blocked. He swam around the long thing, looking in the small windows. How could he just leave them to die? What should he do? The real sharks were coming closer and he heard their thoughts. These... these people were to become their food. So if he wanted to do something, anything... he had to act fast.

  
As fast as that human. He saw one swimming away from the sinking thing and he had no puffy orange thingie on himself. But the sharks did not care and one started to go after that one... Lance knew he could not save all. Not the ones in the puffies - he had no strength to get them out from there. But the smart one escaping without a puffy...

  
_...Leave him alone! You have more than enough to eat. Please leave him to me..._

  
The shark turned back and watched Lance, the merman touching it's nose gently in a friendly way. All sharks knew messing with mer-people was ill advised - the mers could wipe out an anything if they felt like it. So the shark turned to it's brethren and went with them.

  
That left Lance alone... with the human. He could see only his silhouette above so he swam to him and poked him. No response came from the raven-haired human. His eyes were shut and he had a pulse. He appeared to be asleep... or something similar. And it was clear that only the tiny piece of something under his head kept him afloat. He was not safe. And Lance wanted him safe for some reason. So he took the body under his arm and he started swimming... somewhere with him. Anywhere, really. Humans needed land. They only survived in land. So Lance was hell bent on finding a place for the human to stay.

  
***

  
Keith woke to the sound of beeping machines and... and to Shiro. Shiro was beside him and Adam was standing in the corner. What happened? Where was he? Why was he in a hospital? ... Shouldn't he be dead? The memories of what happened came back to him in a rush of emotions and pictures. His plane. Oh God, his plane crashed. He was on the way to Florida, flying back from his school semester in Japan to his parents... and they crashed somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. So how was he here? And why were his dads - Shiro and Adam - here? He heard the voices and felt the touches, saw the tears on both of his dads' cheeks... and he fell back into the darkness. He was not ready yet.

  
***

  
A few weeks later Keith was deemed fit enough to go on walks, so that's what he did. They were all staying in the little town on the coastline where he was found and was brought into the hospital in a critical condition, laying on the sand one morning in a coma. No one knew how he survived. Apparently his plane crashed about 1000 miles far away from the coast. He did not remember anything more than the panic and how he was close enough to the place where the plane broke in half literally and how not close enough to be torn apart by the force of it. How he was wise enough to instantly pull his life jacket off and how he swam away from it all, not caring about anything else then sawing his own life. How he took a breath of air only to fall into the darkness from the cold and from the panic. But this didn't answer how he swam to the coast, a thousand miles away. How he actually survived.

  
So he took his walks and watched the ocean. He sat on the big rock that was farthest away from the coast in the water. At all times either Shiro, Adam or both of them came with him and watched him from the coast as he tried to find the answers. After a time he was deemed fit to leave the hospital and they agreed to stay here a little more before he had to decide what he wanted. After some time he was alone on the rock, no one watching him from the coast, staring into the black water under the moonlight.

  
That's when he felt like someone was watching him - he did not care much about it. Not bothering that a human face with tiny blue markings under his eyes emerged from the water and sat beside him on the rock. Not saying anything when he registered the boy had a fish-like tail. He said nothing and the other said nothing either. So he stood up and went away in his usual time. And the... mermaid? Merman?... disappeared into the water.

  
He came every night. And the merman came every night. And after a few nights... the merman started talking. Telling him about himself. About things that happened to him. About how he saved him. And Keith listened to Lance's stories night after night. But he never answered any of his questions. It never seemed to bother the merman, he always kept talking and asking. A lot of nights had passed - maybe even a thousand. Keith lost count of days a long time ago. But one night the merman said he had no more tales. That he was out of all of them. So Keith only nodded and turned to him.

  
"My name is... Keith. Thank you... for saving me." And with that he put his hand onto Lance's and the merman blushed so red Keith could even see it under the faint moonlight. And Keith started talking. His voice was hoarse as he hadn't used it ever since he got onto that damned plane. He told Lance about himself. His life here and in Florida. A lot about both of his fathers, whom he loved equally and more than anyone else. He told Lance where he lived, how he lived. What was he doing in Japan, what happened to the plane. And Lance listened to him in the same way he had listened to his every word before. An agreement was born that night and it was finally not a silent one. With the end of the summer rapidly approaching Keith had to go back to Florida - and Lance promised that he would find a way to get there too.

  
They met for a few more nights, holding each other's hands on the rock... until one night Keith came with a sad smile instead of a joyful one. He would leave next morning, he told Lance and the merman only nodded, hugging him. After such a long time spent together it felt nice. A little odd, considering Lance was wet and half naked, but it was still nice. Keith gave Lance a photo of their house and of the rock they promised to meet at a sunrise. Lance kept hugging him and promised a hundred times that they would meet again. Keith left that night with his cheeks wet not from seawater but from tears.

  
***

Lance emerged from the considerably warmer water after a long long time. But this time the phoebs did not matter to him because of his total lack of interest - this time the phoebs did not matter because he was sure that no matter what, Keith would be waiting for him on the rock ahead. The rock he promised to wait for him on at every sunrise. And it was a beautiful sunrise finally and he saw the shape of someone on that rock. A human. Standing up, turning to leave. No matter how the pictures he had were long gone, dissolved into the water even as he tried to save them. No matter the time that had passed. He found him. He found him!

  
"Keith!" He called out, voice filled with hope and happiness as he saw the familiar shape, the raven hair. His heart was overfilled with joy when the shape turned and it was really him. The boy who saved him in a way and the boy he saved first from death and then from the same dark place Keith saved him from.

  
He sped up to the rock as Keith got down and leaned forward, his lips barely inches from the surface of the water. Lance didn't hesitate, he got out of the water enough to capture those plump lips with his own, winding one hand in Keith's soft, raven curls. The human kissed back and the moment was absolutely perfect... until they heard a shout from the house - one of Keith's father's calling for his son. Keith smiled at him and Lance's heart fluttered at the promises that lay in that one smile.

  
"Welcome home, Lance. I will be here for you at sunset, don't worry."

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first Voltron fic - and the first thing I am posting here on AO3. I really hoped you liked it!  
> Inspired by: all the mermaid Lance fanarts on the internet and by Natasha Blume's great song, [Black Sea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOjZ4818Gdg).


End file.
